Spoilers: Does The New ‘Star Wars: Rogue One’ Trailer Hint At A Major Character’s Death?

Rogue One just got a whole lot more interesting. The second full trailer for the upcoming Star Wars spin-off launched last week during the Olympics to a positive reception, but the footage contained within still held its cards pretty close to its chest. A new international trailer, though, reveals a significant new detail which shines a spotlight on Jyn Ero’s father, the mysterious Galen (Mads Mikkelsen).

Check out the new trailer below.

“We have intercepted a coded Imperial transmission,” Mon Mothma informs Jyn Erso and the Rebels charged with preventing the “major weapons test”. We already knew that, but what follows is much more intriguing: “The message came from your father.”

Instantly that begs the question of why Galen has seemingly turned on the Empire after designing such a potent a weapon for them. Given that he has been estranged from Jyn since her teenage years, it could be that Galen’s political alliance was responsible for the rift between father and daughter, and that guilt has now set in.

An Alternative Theory…

Isn’t it curious, though, that we haven’t actually seen Galen in any of the trailers? There’s something oddly ambiguous about the “intercepted” message. What if it didn’t actually come from Galen? Could it be that the message is in fact a trap designed to lure Jyn and that her father is long since dead? That’s not unlikely when you consider that the Death Star has been two decades in the making.

Shivers. (Disney)

To add credence to that theory, a Rogue One display at Comic-Con made passing reference to the Death Star being “long-delayed” — which would make sense if the architect was no longer around to solve the problems that inevitably arose during construction.

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Of course I could be way off base, but there has to be some kind of legitimate reason for making Galen such a mystery, and if Rogue One wants to tell a new kind of Star Wars story, a reunion between father and child at the end of the movie feels too much like a retread of old ground.

You’re making me nervous, Jyn. (Disney)

The rest of the footage in the international trailer is basically nothing we haven’t seen already — the Death Troopers in their ominous black armor, a few battle sequences which look as grand in scale as anything seen in The Force Awakens, and that stunning but slightly unnerving shot of a determined Jyn marching toward the end of a very, very high deck. Rogue One hits theaters December 16.

Could Rogue One Be Hiding A Major, Galen-Shaped Twist?

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You are the Princess Shireen of the House Baratheon, and you are my daughter.